Posted by Extranjero on June 27, 2007 at 15:36:30:
WAR WIDOWS (Part 10)
Leilani pressed her eyes against the hooded radar scope and saw their target as a glowing dot. “She’s still at the same range,” she said. “Still heading south, I think.”
“She’s making for the Cobra-Nest,” said Gemma with a flatness in her voice.
“Bitch,” said Nicola. “They must have turned her.”
“Or maybe she was always theirs,” said Gemma bitterly. “How did they find our airstrip, huh? And why was she so keen to stay behind?”
The Widow sped on, low across the jungle. The radar in its long black nose was locked on to its prey. But Laura was too far ahead; they wouldn’t catch her up until she throttled back to land at the Guard base.
“Listen, girls,” came Gemma’s voice over the intercom. “We can follow her, or turn round now. If we follow, I don’t think we’ll make it back.”
Leilani kept on staring at the phosphorescent smudge. It might have been a phantom light; a will-o’-the-wisp to lure them to their doom. But Gemma would be seeing only darkness. She licked her lips. “I’m ready to go on.”
“So am I,” said Nicola. “She has to pay for this.” Her small voice paused uncertainly. “The Cobra-Nest is well defended, yeah?”
“Flak towers all around it,” muttered Gemma. “We can catch her on the runway – but they’d catch us as we pulled away again.”
“If we’re going all the way, we ought to try for the Commander.” Leilani felt a strangely calm resolve. “But I guess those were our napalm bombs we dumped back in the valley.”
“Yeah, they were,” said Gemma. “Just the guns and cannons now.”
The three of them lapsed into gloomy silence, while the engines throbbed on either side and the silent stars rotated overhead. Leilani reported every change of course that Laura made. Her mind was fogging with fatigue. It felt as if the night would never end.
Then “Visual contact,” Gemma rapped. “The base has got its lights on.” Leilani wished that she could see them: wished she wasn’t racing through a void. The green dot drifted in the scope. Adrenalin pumped through her.
“All weapons armed,” said Nicola.
“Four miles away and closing,” Gemma said.
They were lined up with the runway, a bright slash in the black jungle. Their prey was still invisible to Gemma’s straining eyes. But then she glimpsed its outline like a ghost against the lights as Laura eased the Widow down towards the base. Gemma’s stomach knotted as the Cobra-Nest drew closer. The lamps round the perimeter picked out its metal towers and concrete pens. Escaping from the place had felt like flying out of Hell, but now she’d been reclaimed by it, and was heading right back down the Devil’s throat.
Laura’s plane was silhouetted by the runway lights. Gemma kept her distance, throttling back. They were too low for the radar to pick up. But once the other plane was down, the Guards would hear them coming. She swallowed dryly – “Trust me, girls” – and shut both engines down.
After the numbing hours of noise, the silence was electric. There was just the black wind rushing past, and the airframe creaking like an old dark house. Leilani gasped and felt her stomach plunging. She could sense the gulf beneath them, but the Widow still flew on an even keel.
“My trainer taught me this,” said Gemma tightly. “The Widow’s such a damn good plane, you can land on two dead engines. Here we go ...”
They swooped towards the runway with the silence of a glider. Leilani heard a whirring as the wheels came down and locked. “Oh my God,” she whispered as the arc-lights flashed below her. They were over the perimeter and losing altitude with every yard.
Ahead of them, Laura’s Widow landed smoothly and cruised towards the far end of the strip. The base’s gunners turned to watch it passing, and no-one saw the shadow in its wake. “Airspeed down to ninety,” murmured Gemma. “Hold on tight …” The Nightie Mission landed with a jolt, but didn’t bounce. Leilani’s knuckles whitened as they raced along the runway. The nose wheel touched the tarmac. Gemma thumbed the firing button on the yoke.
The speeding aircraft shuddered with the recoil of its cannons, and the tracers leaped ahead like glowing sleet. The barrage chewed at Laura’s starboard tailfin, then ripped into the boom as she went veering to one side. Gemma fired both engines up again; they hacked and clattered. The Widow had begun to slow, but now it trembled with new energy.
“Nicky,” Gemma snapped, “get the control tower!” Nicola squeezed her pistol grips as she stared into the periscopic sight. Behind her, the machine guns elevated and traversed, then opened fire towards the tower as they rolled past. The air traffic controller was still staring in confusion as the panoramic windows blew apart. Her firm breasts ruptured bloodily beneath her tight black tee-shirt, and she staggered backwards with an anguished wail. Bullets bounced around the room like hornets out of Hell, blowing holes in nubile bodies. Girls collapsed over their scopes. Glancing up, Leilani saw the shattered windows darken as the lights went fizzling out like a popped bulb.
A row of helicopters were drawn up beside the runway. Lean and sinister Black Rooks. Gemma steered towards them and let fly again. Four bolts of 20mm shells tore through the nearest chopper, and it burst into a cloud of blazing fuel. Gemma swung the plane and tracked the cannons down the line. Another Rook exploded, and a third one buckled like a stamped-on can.
Leilani hooked her fingers round her carbine’s cocking handle. It drew back with a click she barely heard. The petrol fire lit up the night and cast uncanny shadows. She saw dark figures running to outflank the rolling plane. Unfastening her harness, she undid the canopy, then stood to throw it open. It was like escaping from a Perspex tomb. As the Widow turned again, she opened fire with the Commando, knocking down the Guards who tried to take them from behind. Her snarling bursts were drowned out by the heavy turret guns as Nicola rotated them, spraying bullets at the buildings all around.
At the far end of the runway, Laura’s shock had turned to outrage. She revved her engines up again and steered to port. The plane turned awkwardly. She realised she had lost a rudder. Cursing in her cut-glass voice, she willed the Widow round to face its foe.
Tracey had been staring down the runway, mesmerised, as the mushroom clouds of flame boiled up and the black arachnid shape came prowling through. Then it dawned on her that this would be her only chance. She swung open the canopy and started to climb out. At least two nearby sentries turned their M16s on her, and she grunted, as if winded, as the small but lethal bullets thudded home. Her body folded forward to hang limp from the compartment. The Guards switched their aim towards the cockpit, blasting star-shapes through the plexi-glass.
“Anna, I’m not part of this!” called Laura desperately. “The bitch followed me back here, and I’ll settle her myself!”
“Cease firing on the first plane!” Anna barked over her radio. She was standing close to the Black Rooks, resplendent in her black crop-top and shorts. Just minutes earlier, she’d been all ready to greet Laura. Now she aimed her M16, her schoolgirl features twisted in a snarl.
The rifle jogged her shoulder as she fired at Gemma’s Widow, but the bullets ricocheted off its black hide. The aircraft went careering down the runway, still spitting fire in all directions, leaving death and wreckage in its wake. But Laura’s plane was coming round to meet it. She opened up the throttles and surged forward, full of recklessness and rage.
The ventral cannons throbbed beneath her like a horse’s muscles. The shells tore into Gemma’s plane and sent it floundering out of her path. Her turret was engaged as well, its battery firing forward. They savaged Nightie Mission’s tailfins as it turned aside. But even as the Widow lurched, its own barbette was turning, machine guns blazing in reply. “You bitch, Laura!” screamed Nicola, “you bitch!”
The two black aircraft lumbered round each other, like giant spiders fighting to the death. Laura had a furious urge to drive right into Gemma and rip her up with her propeller blades. She hauled her crippled Widow round. It was like a nightmare dogfight: instead of soaring in the sky, they seemed to crawl through glue.
Anna watched the struggle with a quiver of revulsion. Suddenly her patience snapped. “Unleash Recluses. Blow them both to Hell.” Her eyes went to the concrete pen on the far side of the runway. Its massive steel door began to open as she watched.
Gemma had begun to turn, but one engine had been damaged and the Widow was a rudder down as well. Laura braced herself to ram her nose into her rival and blow its guts clean out at point blank range. Leilani saw the monstrous predator come straight towards her. Her heart threatened to burst her ribs, but she sighted from the shoulder and let rip. The bullets punched a row of holes across the cockpit windshield, and Laura arched back in her seat as sudden wounds erupted in her breasts. Her mouth gaped open in an O of horror. Then a last shot hit her temple, clipping the golden star in her dark hair. Her head snapped sideways and she slumped, a rag doll in her harness. Her plane struck Gemma’s tail assembly, bulldozing the aircraft from her path.
Leilani fell back down into her seat and clutched the armrest, hanging on for dear life as the Widow slewed around. Then the undercart gave way and she felt the plane collapsing. The propellers screeched against the tarmac, spraying sparks and fragments everywhere. The gate of the Recluses’ pen continued grinding open, revealing the dark shapes that lurked within. Four black Shermans, wheel to wheel, were revving up already. Laura’s plane clattered towards them, freewheeling with Death at the controls.
Anna realised what was going to happen. “Activate their cannons, quick!” she shouted. “Kill it dead!” But the tanks’ onboard computers were still running their self-tests. The nearest Guards went scuttling clear while others started firing at the plane. Laura and Louise drooped heedlessly against their seat-straps, while Tracey’s corpse still hung over the side. The Widow and its lifeless crew rolled straight into the silo, colliding with the Shermans and engulfing them in burning aircraft fuel.
The blast of the exploding plane lit up the littered runway. Leilani was on the cockpit floor, where she’d landed as her own plane hit the ground. She struggled up and glimpsed the flaming wreckage. She could see a Sherman, wreathed in fire, like a devil crouched in Hell. Then its fuel tanks went up, and its stock of shells erupted. The squat black tank disintegrated. More shells flashed and cracked amid the flames.
“Shit,” Leilani gasped and clambered out of her compartment. The Widow’s engines sizzled. She breathed in the heady stink of leaking fuel. Gemma was halfway out of the front cockpit, and Nicky’s canopy was open too. Then the firing – stunned to silence – started up around them. Bullets whined like lethal insects. Gemma swung her bare leg clear and jumped. She landed awkwardly and crumpled forward. Leilani dropped into the shelter of the starboard wing.
Nicola had brought an M3 sub-machine gun with her. She stood up in her own compartment, firing down at anything that moved. “Come on, Nicky,” Gemma called, as a fresh blast shook the tarmac. Nicola swung one leg out, still working the crude weapon left and right. The nearest Guards went down, wounds spurting crimson through their tee-shirts. But others fired back at her, and abruptly it was her turn to convulse. She toppled back, still firing, but her leg caught in her seat strap. The gun cut out and hit the ground beneath her dangling corpse.
Gemma gave a bitter wail and struggled to her feet. Her ankle couldn’t bear her weight. She tried to limp away and pitched full-length. The fall saved her from the next burst of bullets. Leilani broke her cover, firing back across the blonde girl’s prostrate form. More Guards spun and slumped to lie in silence. Leilani scurried over and dropped prone at Gemma’s side.
The pilot’s face was streaked with tears. “I’ve sprained my fucking ankle! Just run for it. You’ve done as much as anyone could do.”
Her words were punctuated by a muffled whump behind them as the Widow’s leaking fuel caught light at last. The wreck exploded into flames, then started spitting tracers as its ammunition cooked off in the blaze. Some of the rounds flashed very close, but the blizzard gave them cover. Leilani rose, pulled Gemma up and stumbled clear with her.
They’d got about ten yards when a patrol truck screeched towards them, a Black Hound pickup with two Guards inside. Leilani and Gemma dived into the grass beside the runway, but the driver had seen them in the glare and skidded to a halt. The Guards came scrambling out and started firing. Leilani glimpsed their black berets and realised they were Shield Section girls.
Bullets zipped above her head and gouged the earth behind her. She rolled away from Gemma with a single-minded urge to draw their fire. The Guards were armed with MP5s and triggering short bursts. They came forward implacably – and then the tank pen gouted blinding light.
The fire had reached the reservoir of fuel beneath the silo. A cloud of fire came roaring out and boiled into the sky. More flame spouted upward from the roof vents of the building. The Guards were frozen by the sight, as if they’d just been lit up by a flare.
Leilani glimpsed their open-mouthed expressions and opened fire before the shock wore off. She clearly saw the puffs of smoke erupt from one girl’s tee-shirt. Rolling, she let fly again, and the second Guard flipped backwards off her feet. Leilani crawled to Gemma as the base ran wild around them. She could dimly hear the bray of klaxons through the fiery gale. Figures sprinted past but barely glanced in their direction. She hauled the blonde girl to her feet and helped her over to the vehicle.
Gemma was still sobbing with frustration, but she stooped to grab a fallen MP5. “I’m sorry,” she insisted as they climbed into the pickup. Leilani simply pressed her finger to the girl’s plump lips.
Then she started up and pressed her boot down on the pedal. They took off through the blazing chaos, blending with the panicked garrison. One Guard even waved them by, not noticing their clothing. Leilani braked abruptly as a fire tender surged across their path.
“Oh my God,” breathed someone next to Anna. The Brigade-Leader turned and felt her spine go cold, despite the heat. Something was still moving in the furnace of the tank pen. It grew more solid as she watched. The chill became a queasy pang of dread. Slowly the Command Panther emerged from the inferno, its metal glowing dully. Nothing human could have lived inside that hulk. Even a Recluse’s robot brain would have been scrambled. But this was a dark angel’s tank. Anna wondered if the firestorm felt like home.
Leilani spun the wheel and left the runway. “Please God, they’ve left a gate open,” she said. A high wire fence enclosed the base, with arc lights ranged along it. The perimeter road ran just inside and they turned to follow that.
The Command Panther sat brooding for a moment, impassive as an armoured sphinx, but Anna sensed the rage within its shell. It was the wrath of something wholly alien. Biting her lip, she backed away. The tank’s machine guns stuttered into life.
Quickly and methodically it cleared the ground around it, gunning down the nearest Guards despite their pleading cries. Anna looked on, wincing, from the shelter of a doorway as her loyal girls were killed or forced to run. The firing stopped when no-one was alive for thirty yards; but then the Panther’s turret started to rotate. Somehow, in the midst of the confusion, it had locked onto a single fleeing truck.
Leilani had no inkling of the Gorgon’s gaze behind her, till the 75mm shell came shrieking in. It fell just short, and blew the speeding pickup off the road. Leilani screamed despite herself as they plunged into the fence and ploughed on through. The torn mesh snagged the vehicle and trapped it like a web, but the front smashed down against the ground and almost jolted both girls from their seats.
The stricken vehicle seemed to hang suspended. Leilani all but fell from it, and Gemma did the same. Panting and bruised, they staggered on together. The ground had been cleared around the base, but the gloom beyond the lights was deep as pitch.
The Panther fired another shell, and the truck exploded in a ball of flame. Leilani and Gemma pitched face down as glowing fragments landed in the scrub. The tank remained immobile for a moment, with acrid smoke still streaming from its gun. Then it slewed round on the sticky tarmac and began to roll towards the mangled fence.
Anna moved out cautiously from cover. Several Guards were crouched nearby, all waiting for her lead. She stared after the prowling tank, her skin still cold and prickly. But however much she dreaded it, she hated Gemma infinitely more.
Brandishing her M16, she jerked her head. “Let’s go.” Keeping a wary distance, they began to follow in the Panther’s wake.
* * *
Glancing up, Leilani realised that the day was breaking. With the arc-lights left behind them, she could see the treetops and the paler sky. She turned her head. The base was blazing like a misplaced sunrise. Its orange glow streamed after them, and lit the row of signs across their path.
They lurched on, Gemma whimpering with effort, their arms around each other’s shoulders. Leilani glanced back nervously again. Then they came up to the nearest signpost. It bore a skull and crossbones that looked hellish in the flickering orange light.
“What did you say was out here?” said Leilani.
“Old tunnels, bunkers … booby traps.” Gemma peered beyond the signpost, her face full of apprehension. “But it’s safer than back there.”
As they passed the sign, they heard a noise behind them, cutting through the base’s clamour. The raw clatter of a tank. Leilani’s heart leaped up. “Come on …” she muttered. The scrub was getting thicker now. The jungle was a hundred yards away.
“Look out,” Gemma gasped. Leilani glimpsed a pit of shadow, half-hidden by the grass and weeds. She steered well clear of it. It could have been a foxhole or the entrance to a tunnel, but it looked exactly like an opened grave.
The closeness of the trees was tantalising, but Gemma could do no more than limp, and the ground now seemed as perilous as a swamp. In the growing light it had a lunar aspect, pocked with craters from a long-forgotten war. As they picked their way across its humps and hollows, they heard the vicious zip of bullets, then the crack of guns from further back.
Down into the grass they went. Leilani gripped her carbine. But Gemma dropped her MP5 and seized Leilani’s face in both her hands. “You can’t escape with me,” she said. “I’ll stay and give you cover. Like Lena did for you and me. Your life’s worth that to us.”
Before Leilani could object, the blonde girl kissed her fiercely, then drew away and wiped her cheek. “Go on,” she hissed, “before they get too close.”
“I can’t lose you as well,” Leilani bleated. Gemma squirmed round in the grass and heeled her in the ribs: “You never will.” Leilani stared at her. The pilot grinned back, almost cheeky. “You angel, Gem,” Leilani said. “And by the way, you’re bloody beautiful.”
She turned and crawled away, then rose into a loping crouch. Gemma turned to watch her go. “I guess I knew that, love,” she murmured wryly. But the compliment had made her glow. She raised the sub-machine gun and squinted through the stalks of grass. Her heat thrummed in her breast against the earth.
She could see the tank advancing through the twilight. A line of Guards came after it, strung out like beaters at a country shoot. She couldn’t tell if Anna was among then. Dying would not seem quite so bad if she took that haughty bitch along with her.
Leilani reached the trees and looked back, gasping. She saw the lumbering black tank and the stalking line of Guards. An aura seemed to hang around the Panther. It wasn’t just a Black Recluse. She realised a Commander was inside. A jolt of fundamental fear went through her. But all she had to do was run. It couldn’t follow her into the trees.
Gemma had been right: there could be no escape together. The blonde girl had given her a chance, the same as Lena had. Her former lover’s words came back to spur her. I love you, she had said. Now move your arse!
“Sod it,” said Leilani and turned back towards the hunters. It felt as if she’d just shrugged off a weight. “Coming with me, L?” she murmured to the silence. Then she started moving, like a leopard through the scrub.
She came to another pit. It seemed a bottomless black well. Holding her breath, she eased herself down into it, feet first. Her carbine had a built-in torch and it showed her a cramped tunnel. The beam lit up a veil of cobwebs. Centipedes squirmed blindly in the light. Leilani felt her flesh turn cold; but what were bugs and spiders, compared to a Commander? She went down the burrow on her hands and knees.
Gemma lay with the MP5 tucked tight into her shoulder. The tank was over to her left. She waited while it drew abreast of her. Then she shot the nearest Guard dead centre through her crop-top. The girl kicked backwards with a grunt. Gemma flicked to automatic and let rip.
Anna glimpsed the muzzle flash and swung to fire back, the muscles quivering in her bare arms. A bullet ruffled Gemma’s hair as she slid back down the hollow and bits of earth showered down on her. She braced herself, her heartbeat racing now.
Anna gestured to her girls and they moved in on the sniper. Their attention was so focused that they failed to see another threat emerge. Leilani half-rose through the grass behind them. She squeezed a three-round burst into the small of one Guard’s back. The girl spun with a throaty cry and Leilani switched her aim. The next Guard’s breasts were big enough to catch all three hits from a triple-tap. She gave a winded gasp and tumbled backwards. Leilani ducked back down into the pit and scrambled clear.
“Grenades!” called Anna peevishly. A girl went crawling forward, unclipped a black egg from her waist and primed it while her comrades covered her. She lobbed it down the pit and shouted “Fire in the hole!” The grenade burst with a muffled thud and spouted smoke and earth out of the depths.
Leilani felt the blast as she crawled down another tunnel. The stale air rippled round her, and a sprinkling of soil went down her neck. Her ragged shirt kept snagging on protrusions in the dimness. Impulsively she shrugged it off, squirmed out of it and carried on bare-skinned.
Gemma felt a wild relief as she saw the Guards’ confusion, but it mingled with dismay, because now both of them were doomed. She bobbed up, fired another burst, and ducked her head down quickly. One soldier had been waiting, and a whining bullet missed her by an inch.
The Guards were looking out for every pit and foxhole now, and tossing hand grenades into each one. Each blast caused an eruption like a miniature volcano, but the spouts of earthy smoke were dwarfed by the murky clouds that hung over the base.
Leilani pushed her head against a trap door. It lifted slowly, inch by inch, till it gave a narrow view of grass and scrub. A lifeless Guard lay nearby, her young face pinched and sullen. Her M16 was closer, within reach. Leilani took its magazine, which would fit in her Commando. Then she eased the door back down. A Guard stalked past and failed to notice it.
The Panther had come grinding to a halt and stood in silence. Maybe it was listening for a heartbeat underground. Anna glanced uneasily towards it. The Commander’s mind was reaching out, beyond its entourage of black-clad dolls.
Leilani waited, crouched beneath the trapdoor. She heard it creak as a Guard stepped onto it. The girl must have realised straightaway that she wasn’t on firm ground, but Leilani gave her no time to react. Raising her gun in the cramped space, she fired up through the trapdoor. The girl screamed as the bullets pierced her pussy, gutting her.
“Fire in the hole,” Leilani muttered. The body thumped down on the trapdoor. Blood came streaming in around the edge.
The Guards swung round towards the cry, and Gemma shot a redhead in the back. The girl coughed out a scarlet plume that clashed with her hair colour. Gemma fired a raking burst and scrabbled back across the lumpy ground.
The turret of the Panther swung towards her as she reached another dip and bellied down. The coaxial machine gun spat some ineffectual tracers, but they flashed above her body and flew wild.
Leilani forced herself along a claustrophobic passage. The tunnels were stifling with trapped heat and her skin was slick with sweat, her loincloth soaked. She flinched as something crawled over her shoulder. The gun-torch probed the gloom ahead. She realised she had lost her bearings now.
Then she saw a patch of muddy daylight. Killing the torch, she slid into an open firing pit. M16s were cracking sharply, somewhere to her right, and the engine of the tank had started up. Cautiously she raised her head and saw the Guards converging. They must have Gemma cornered, but there wasn’t a clear shot. Leilani crawled out of the pit – and sensed a monstrous presence. She realised her mistake at once, but it was far too late.
The shooting in the confined space had partially deafened her. The tank was closer than she’d thought; she turned and gasped with fright. Its glacis plate was like a cliff that sloped up to the sky. Reflexively she rolled and then its bulk slid over her, the belly close enough to kiss, the tracks and road wheels squealing on each side. It blocked the day out like a steel tomb shutting. And then it came abruptly to a halt.
Leilani lay face up, her bosom panting. Her stiffened nipples felt the heat still bleeding from the steel. She could visualise the creature in the turret right above her; its black cowl-helmet turning, and its eyes like hot red coals. The Commander sensed that she was close. She felt her nerve ends sizzling. Maybe it would slew the tank and smear her like a bug.
A horrid pause; and then the tank moved forward. Leilani briefly closed her eyes as stinking diesel fumes rolled over her. The engine clattered overhead, and then she glimpsed the daylight and powered up into a crouch.
Two Guards were walking in the monster’s wake.
One was holding a grenade and tugging out the pin, about to lob it down into the firing pit. She wouldn’t be a threat for two more seconds, so Leilani sighted on the other girl. The Guard’s face was a mask of shock; she tried to turn her rifle and Leilani pumped three rounds into her chest. She switched her aim at once and shot the first girl through the midriff. Both Guards went arching backwards, and the primed grenade spun up into the air.
She could have dived for cover, but the blast would still have caught her. She snatched the bomb instinctively and swung towards the tank. The twin exhausts rose up its back like stovepipes. She pushed the grenade down one of them and flung herself away.
The Panther clattered on until she heard a muffled thump and then a ghastly grating noise inside the hull. Black smoke spewed from the exhaust; the tracks jerked in their motion. The engine hatch had loosened like the lid of a blown can. Leilani glimpsed a lick of flame beneath it. The tank came snorting to a halt, still trying to grasp what damage had been done.
Then fire came bursting from the engine housing. The tank made a hoarse screeching sound, like a beast in agony. It turned Leilani’s sweaty skin to gooseflesh. The Panther juddered forward, as if trying to escape its burning tail.
The thing had rolled out of a blazing silo, but she had found its weak point and struck mindlessly at its Achilles heel. The fuel tanks exploded in fireball that engulfed it, and then the shells went off and blew the guts out of the tank. The hulk stopped dead, its carcase burning fiercely. The shattered turret tumbled off it like a severed head.
The few surviving Guards looked on in horror. Gemma was struck dumb herself, but her instincts kicked back in before theirs did. She shot one girl between the tits and blew another’s brains out. Leilani was up and firing too. A last Guard pirouetted and went down,
She swung the Commando left and right, still balanced on one knee. But no other shooters challenged her. The tank was flaming like a funeral pyre. Reaction made Leilani’s limbs feel leaden. Straightening, she trudged towards where Gemma still sat numbly in the grass. Though the sun was almost up, the ground felt treacherous and hollow. She glimpsed a patch of sparser growth and gave it a wide berth.
The blonde managed to smile, although her face was wet with tears. “I said to leave me, didn’t I?” she said.
“Yeah,” Leilani said. “But then you still owe me an orgasm.” She gave Gemma a crooked smile.
“Let me come for both of you,” sneered Anna’s voice.
Leilani came up short, as if someone had thumped her stomach. She should have spun unthinkingly; but with that thought, she knew it was too late. Her wide eyes locked with Gemma’s as the blonde girl raised her gun, but Leilani was in her line of fire. Then the haughty voice behind her spoke again.
“Throw the gun away, you cow,” said Anna. She was in an overgrown slit-trench, where she’d hurled herself when the Panther blew apart. Now she levered herself out, her rifle aimed one-handed, still pointed at Leilani’s back as she straightened up again.
Leilani hesitated, and then tossed the Colt aside. She could smell the Panther’s burning stink, and taste the bitterness of her own fear.
“Hands behind your neck,” said Anna flatly. Leilani did so, feeling her breasts grow tauter with the pose. “Gemma – make your weapon good and safe,” continued Anna, “or I’ll blow her backbone out between her tits.”
“Gem, she’s going to kill me anyway,” Leilani muttered. Gemma stared back helplessly. She pressed the catch to free the magazine. Leilani winced as the blonde girl flung the clip away from her. She worked the bolt, then dropped the gun and sat back miserably in the long grass.
Anna prowled up behind Leilani, Her pale eyes flicked to the tattoo at the base of her opponent’s graceful spine. “Valkyrie, huh?” She gave a snort. “The Carrion Girls, we call them. You’re not really a traitor if you’re not really a Guard.”
“So which division are you, then?” Leilani asked, not turning.
“Barbaria.”
“The Barbie Dolls! No wonder you’re so easy to knock down.”
Anna hissed between her teeth and struck Leilani with her rifle butt. The blow between her shoulder blades was crippling. Leilani gave a sob of pain and dropped onto her knees. Anna released the M16 so it hung below her breasts. She drew her ceremonial dagger and grasped Leilani’s hair with her left hand.
Leilani kicked back viciously against the blonde girl’s shin, and Anna stumbled with an anguished curse. As she fought to keep her balance, Leilani reached behind herself, grasped Anna’s rifle with both hands and hauled the startled Guard over her back. Anna did a somersault and landed heavily. Leilani squirmed away from her and scrambled to her feet.
Anna sat up, her English rose complexion flushed with fury. She dropped the knife and fumbled with her gun. Leilani pounced and pulled her down, the rifle trapped between them. They thrashed in the long grass, while Gemma scrabbled round for her discarded clip.
Leilani grappled for the M16, her face contorted. Anna’s small white teeth were bared. Her biceps swelled as she tried to turn the gun. Their firm breasts rubbed each other round the weapon. Leilani felt the blonde girl’s nipples, button-hard beneath her black crop-top.
Then her fingers found the magazine catch. She pressed it and the clip fell out. Anna gave a snort of rage. They kept on struggling for the gun, Anna’s finger on the trigger till Leilani forced it down and sent the last round whipcracking into the sky.
Anna promptly jerked her knee into Leilani’s groin. Leilani doubled up with pain and Anna shoved her back. She shrugged the empty rifle off and dropped it, then scooped her dagger up again and sprang towards Leilani like a cat.
Leilani seemed to brace herself for the blade to carve her body, then reared back like a gymnast so that Anna’s furious slash just skimmed her breasts. She kept on falling, seizing Anna’s tee-shirt as she tumbled and the blonde girl overreached into a lunge. Leilani brought her boot up into her opponent’s midriff and flipped her over, straight towards the patch of sparser grass.
Just as she had thought, it was a trapdoor, and Anna smashed straight through the rotten wood. But what she hadn’t banked on was the nature of the hole: it was a booby-trap of sharpened bamboo stakes.
Anna landed tits-first on the points and screamed in anguish as the force of impact drove them through her flesh. The rest of her body flopped on down, and more spikes pierced her stomach. “Gaaahh!” she cried out, flailing; but the more she squirmed, the deeper she was gored. The points tore through her heart and lungs and ruptured her slim belly. As the tips erupted from her back, she spat a gout of blood and then hung limp.
“Shit,” Leilani breathed as she climbed upright. She looked at Gemma, but Gemma was staring wide-eyed at the pit. The pilot clutched her MP5, but she hadn’t found the clip yet. She met Leilani’s gaze at last, and let the weapon fall.
Leilani picked her trusty Colt Commando up and slung it. Then she went across and helped the blonde girl to her feet. Gemma clung to her. They held each other for a moment, then stumbled on towards the trees, past the dead girls and the tank’s colossal wreck.
* * *
A helicopter clattered down the valley, its noise resounding from the tree-cloaked slopes. It was a Dark Squaw gunship, lean and ugly. Its reflection skimmed the surface of the river like a shark.
The Rivermaids stood listening in the shadows, between the spars of sunlight, underneath the foliage. They knew these monstrous insects presaged evil. The older girls were stoic, but their younger sisters cringed. Bare skin prickled in the heat, and sweaty breasts pulsated. The monster slowed, as if to sniff them out – and then passed on.
As its racket faded in the distance, Leilani’s fingers loosened round her spear. Not that it would have helped her much against the gunship’s cannons, but the instincts of an Amazon died hard. She was waiting halfway up the trail, wearing nothing but her loincloth and a stripe of scarlet warpaint on her cheek.
The forest had grown silent as the chopper prowled above them, but now it whooped and chattered once again. Leilani turned and saw Gemma peering skyward. The pilot wore a loincloth too: it left most of her magnificently nude.
Leilani grinned. “Don’t worry, girl. They haven’t found us yet.”
Gemma hesitated, then came up the trail to join her. Her damp blonde hair was tied back and four streaks of paint like claw-strokes daubed her chest. Leilani reached out for her hand. “No trouble from the ankle?”
“Not any more,” said Gemma. She was looking very young. Like someone starting a new life, and full of zest for it.
Their moist breasts touched. Leilani kissed and stroked her. Then they went on up the path in the footsteps of their sister Rivermaids.
The End
A special mention to “P-61 Black Widow Units of World War 2” (Osprey Publishing) for some of the ideas and detail behind this story.
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